Study has revealed that a little-known chemical found in popular oat-based foods including Cheerios and Quaker Oats can reduce fertility, altered fetal growth and delayed puberty.
Gatekeepers News reports that the study revealed that four out of five Americans are being exposed to this.
The Environmental Working Group, EWG, published the study in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology on Thursday.
The study found out a staggering 80% of Americans tested positive for a harmful additive called chlormequat.
According to the EWG, the “highly toxic agricultural chemical” is federally allowed to be used on oats and other grains imported to the US.
Chlormequat, when applied to oat and grain crops, alters a plant’s growth, preventing it from bending over and thus making it easier to harvest.
According EWG, four out of five Americans, or roughly 80%, are being exposed to a little-known chemical called chlormequat that’s found in popular oat-based foods, including Cheerios.
The nonprofit organisation in a report published alongside the group’s findings, said, “Just as troubling, we detected the chemical in 92% of oat-based foods purchased in May 2023, including Quaker Oats and Cheerios.”
General Mills, which makes Cheerios, and PepsiCo, which makes Quaker Oats, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
After testing for the presence of chlormequat in urine collected from 96 people between 2017 and 2023, the EWG’s tests “found higher levels and more frequent detections of chlormequat in the 2023 samples … which suggests consumer exposure to chlormequat could be on the rise.”
The EWG, therefore, warned that chlormequat exposure “could be on the rise,” though it’s been shown to damage animals’ reproductive health, as well as harm fetal development and delay puberty.
For reference, chlormequat was detected in 69% of study participants in 2017.
The number edged higher, to 74%, between 2018 and 2022, and spiked to 90% in 2023.
Since chlormequat typically leaves the body within 24 hours, such a high concentration of positive tests indicates that Americans are regularly being exposed to the chemical, according to the EWG’s report earlier reported on by the Daily Mail.
